Braz King provided
a quick summary, and Benjamin Barnett provided a play-by-play
of the multiplayer final.

Smackdown
in Jacktown 2005 Report by Braz King

Originally
published in the Shadowfist Forum on Yahoogroups on 7 November 2005. Republished
with permission. Members can read the original in the archive.

I'm in a rush to
get to the office at the moment, so I'll just say a few things. The turn out
was really good. I think we had 26 in the Final Brawl and many were newer players,
with a couple of really young kids, a bunch of later teens/early twenties with
about... maybe 1/2 to 1/3 of the players hardcore veterans.

Friday night the
Toronto contingent played in the Jackson Battlegrounds proving ground, both
guns blazing duelling. A local player, who's name I forget, dominated with a
7M Unexpected Rescure/WotC, Ben. Tao, Fox Pass/TotA S, Balanced Harmonies monstrosity.
Tim Linden came second with his Sorcerer's Throne deck, and I came third with
my Brawl in the Tombs Dragon deck.

The Smackdown Champion
(Final Brawl) this year is Kel McKay, of Toronto. It was a great win for him
going undefeated through four qualifying rounds then taking the final in about
half an hour. Kel hasn't won any major tournaments before so this was exciting
to see. He also hasn't even played casual cards much this year because he and
his wife Anita have had their first baby this year. So congratulations to Kel
and his ReAscended/Golden Comeback deck for a dominating win!

I should note that
Zev played in this tournament and was actually the leader, by far, after the
final qualifying round. He was playing his old PingPing deck and I could not
believe it was winning so much! LOL! However, the amount of CHARs in the tournament
helped as he was running multiple Purist Sorcerers and when there wasn't a CHAR
to take he would drop the state that changes the designator and take another
hitter (saw him get the Eastern King that way). The Walking Corpses were standouts
as well, because at any time when there was an open window, he could drop that
2 for 4 and take a site, or whatever was needed. Zev bowed out of the final
to let another player in, who turned out to be Gordon ? from Chicago area.

Tim Linden own
the duelling event, and I came second again. In the final between Tim and I
his deck rolled, my tipped over and died. Four of my five Brawls were in the
bottom 8 cards of the deck and I didn't draw a foundation till turn three, so
the final was anticlimactic, but the event was fun.

That's all I have
time for now! Someone else can add to this perhaps?

Cheers,
Braz.

Smackdown
in Jacktown 2005 multiplayer final play-by-play by Benjamin Barnett

Players diced for
seating order, shook hands all around, and got down to an unexpectedly short
(about 25 minutes) slugfest for all the marbles. I only jotted highlights, and
omitted turns where nothing notable seemed to be happening; if I'd known there'd
only be 6 turns in total I would've been more thorough.

Just a quick mention
that Greg Zimmerman and the Michigan crew did another amazing job organizing
a top tier event, with 26 participants in the multiplayer tournament. That's
2 better than Nationals drew this year! And thanks of course to the Canadian
contingent, who drove all that long long way to hand us our asses. Thanks also
to Zev for showing up, kicking ass like a playa, then bowing out of the final
to give as many non-owners as possible a shot at the katana. You the man, Z.

Gordon and Kel's
decks seemed most focused and were able to do something almost every turn. Charles
didn't perhaps have enough time to come back from losing King of the Fire Pagoda
v2, and my deck was slow out of the gate -- I was relying on Blade Palm and
Positive Chi to thwart wins and I just didn't draw into them soon enough. In
fact my turn 5 attack was as much an attempt to Reef myself into some stoppage
as to take a site. Congrats again to Kel McKay for a tightly-tuned deck and
relentlessly efficient, tournament-winning play!